


and I'll meet you again blanketed in soil

by macabrekawaii



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: I'll keep this in m/m though because there's some slashy elements, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, Off Screen Death, Pre-Slash, as I think their affection transcends brotherly comfort here, but know it's not really the focus, death of an OC but they don't show up in the fic, there is frank discussion of suicide, this is not REALLY slash but you can certainly read slash into this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabrekawaii/pseuds/macabrekawaii
Summary: “Dickie I lost someone tonight, aight? Can you lay off? Look, I’ll fuckin chuck my guns right into this alley, right the fuck now, if you’d shut the fuck up, ok?”
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 14
Kudos: 143





	and I'll meet you again blanketed in soil

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place sometime after UtRH but before Jason has really made any clear steps on reconciling with the Batfam beyond like "lol fine I won't fuckin stuff 8 heads in a duffel bag on yr turf." Canon is stupid and I hate it so really just slot this in wherever you like. Just know Jason and Dick aren't particularly close at this time. 
> 
> Title is from "Blue Jays" by Days n Daze which always gives me a lot of Dick/Jason feelings but tonight it just split my fucking heart in two and I had to work some shit out via these boys.

_Tonight I drink to you_  
_For all the times we spent_  
_And all the times we didn't get_  
_And I'll meet you again_  
_Blanketed in soil_  
_Fossilized in photographs_  
_Can't say it doesn't hurt_  
_The beating second hand that tortures me_  
_Cause you're not here_  
_Cause you're not here  
  
  
_

Gotham is beautiful even as her people die. Monoliths of concrete and glass stand proud against the soft velvet of late night, oblivious to the comings and goings of its denizens. It’s cold and clear, a mid-September night, one of the first to really be touched by an autumn chill. The city glimmers in its indifference to its inhabitants, neon signs and street lamps flickering in the dark below like little flames. Red Hood sits on the parapet running alongside the edge of an old building at the outskirts of Park Row, his back resting against a weathered gargoyle. His city hardly cares that he’s there. Another sentinel standing watch, another monster chiseled from a slab that could have been molded into something far less sinister.  
  
“Planning something tonight?” A familiar voice echoes behind him.

  
Nightwing lands almost soundlessly behind Jason’s perch over the building’s edge. That Jason doesn’t flinch at the sudden intrusion speaks volumes on the unsteady truce he’s called with the Bats. He’s given them a wide berth, almost as big as Gotham itself the last few months, though they don’t need to know he simply hasn’t been in town for most of it.

  
“Spare me the lecture, Big Bird, I’m not in the mood.”

  
“What are you doing here, Hood?” Nightwing’s voice is clipped and cold and Jason wishes he still had his helmet on, that he could make himself as hollow as the voice modulator would allow. A fiberglass and polyethylene helmet can let you do a lot of things, like take some pretty heavy fire to the goddamn face. Alas, smoking a cigarette is not one of them.

  
“Brooding, geez, what’s it look like? Been away from B too long to recognize the signs?” Jason takes another drag, tilts his head back, and if he blows the smoke entirely up towards Nightwing, well who’s gonna blame him.  
  
Nightwing steps off to the side of him but keeps in his peripheral vision, crouching effortlessly on the building’s edge. “There was a fire down by the docks about an hour ago, was that you?”  
  
“Nah.” Another drag, another slow billow of smoke blown directly towards the other man. “I don’t set every fire in this misbegotten city.”  
  
Nightwing sighs, eye-whites narrowing as he watches Jason warily. “Just tell me what you’re doing here so I can either drag you Arkham and save us the trouble or get on with my patrol.”  
  
“Dickie I lost someone tonight, aight? Can you lay off? Look, I’ll fuckin chuck my guns right into this alley, right the fuck now, if you’d shut the fuck up, ok?” 

  
“Alright, alright. You don’t have to do that, I believe you.” Nightwing stops balancing awkwardly on the edge of the rooftop and sits down beside Jason, a few feet away.

  
“I hate these guns anyway, I gotta get new Eagles.” Jason mutters to himself, takes the last drag off his cigarette, pulling it right down to the filter, and flicks it off the roof’s edge, as if to accentuate his point. “Am I off the hook, officer?”  
  
“Who’d you lose?” Nightwing’s voice is soft, almost distressingly so. It’s the most emotion Jason’s heard directed towards himself in a long time. It’s not the freewheeling vigilante beside him now. Dick seems to catch himself and coughs awkwardly, fake as hell. “Not that you uh, have to tell me.”  
  
“Its aight. It was just a friend from when I was a kid. I’ve tried to keep…. Tried to keep tabs on a few of ‘em now that I’m back in town. Most of everyone grew up rough, moved on from Gotham or got swallowed by it. Guess another one caught the fuck up tonight.”  
  
“Was it the gang shooting at the steel mill?”  
  
Jason finches. Of course that’s what Dick would expect of his friends, right? Just a bunch of good for nothing gang bangers. When Jason answers, his voice rasps in his throat with a barely contained anger. “No, Goldie, he fucking killed himself.”  
  
Dick flinches, seemingly realizing his inexcusable error. He slides a bit closer to Jason and reaches up to flip off the whites on his domino. “I’m sorry Jason.”  
  
“Yeah well, that’s how it fucking is sometimes. So it goes.”  
  
“It always hurts to lose a friend.” Dick puts a hand on his shoulder. Jason doesn’t recoil.  
  
“He was a good guy, older than me, he always looked out for me when I was on the streets. Split food with me when he could, let me know where a good score was, maybe when something hot fell off a truck. We spent a lot of good times together. He always kept an eye on me.” Jason knows he’s babbling, knows Dick couldn’t care less about his fucked up childhood, but he feels like a dam that’s just burst and once his words start pouring out he’s got no way to stuff them back inside. “He deserved better than this. He had a wife, an a kid. But I dunno it looks like they maybe split town a few years ago while he did a bit in jail. For drug running, like we all did. I dunno, I wasn’t’” _Alive_ , Jason thinks. Wasn’t alive. Was a corpse in the ground. Or was shambling around on the same streets, wasn’t cognizant enough to know he had any goddamn friends. Or was halfway around the world learning how to be a beast. “I wasn’t around. But when I checked in last, he had really turned it around. He was working a good job, keeping sober. I even set him up with a place, though he didn’t know it was me. He was really doing alright. Really on the fuckin up and up. And he shot himself tonight.”   
  
Dick doesn’t say anything, but he pushes in closer, right up next to Jason. This close, Jason can feel the heat off of him, a contrast to the wind whipping around this high up. He can smell the faint spice of the cologne Dick had always favored. Jason missed wearing cologne, missed having any tells that made him feel like a person. But he’d had it trained out of him, was surprised Dick never had. An assassin leaves no trace. A shadow has no scent.  
  
“Do you know why it happened?” Dick asks, naïve as fuck. His face is so open, so expressive even with the domino. Jason could push him right off the roof he’d never be ready for it. He could choke him out before Dick had a second to react. He’s just sitting there concerned, vulnerable. Times like this it’s hard for Jason to remember that he’s younger than Dick, younger by more than half a decade. Younger enough that by the time he was sliding on scaled goddamn panties, Dick was already off leading a team, making his own name for himself. Getting as far away from Gotham as he could.  
  
“No. He didn’t leave a note. And even if he did there’s no real way to know. Why does anyone do fuckin anything?” Jason reaches up, gets his hands into his hair, runs his fingers through the awkward splotch of white at the front that reminds him _he shouldn’t be here_. That he’s here and doesn’t know why. Never knows _why_. “Maybe he was just fucking tired.”  
  
“I’m so sorry Jason.” Dick repeats.  
  
A few minutes pass with neither man saying anything, moving, doing anything. Just sitting in silence and breathing in the cool dark of the city. And then very suddenly Dick’s arm is around Jason. Dick’s arm is around Jason and he’s tugging him closer, sliding his arm up and down his back.  
  
“Do you ever get….. _tired_ Jason?” Dick’s voice is low, almost a whisper. He tightens his hold around Jason’s wide shoulders, fingers digging in firmly against the hard muscle of his arm.

  
Jason stays quiet, contemplative. His friend was a good man with a shit lot. When was the last time he’d had an arm around him? When was the last time _Jason_ had an arm around him that wasn’t a fight? Something cracks inside him, something fragile that he’d rather not think about. Something he’d pushed down, deep down, beneath a sludge of neon green.

  
“Why am I here, Dickie? Why am I here when guys like him can’t stick around? I’m just a….” A fuck up. A murderer. A monster. A mistake. He wants to say it all, he wants so badly to say everything he’s been saving up inside of him for Dick. For his Golden Boy. For his Robin.  
  
He’s not ready yet. Doesn’t know if he ever will be.  
  
Dick is warm against Jason’s side and Jason can’t help himself, knows he’ll kick himself for it later, but he lets himself sink down and rest his head on Dick’s shoulder. Dick’s arm pulls him tighter against himself, a silent permission.  
  
“Why am I here, Dickie?” Jason repeats. His voice cracks with the question, belying his sadness, belying his age. Jason Todd is many, many things. One of those things is still a boy who can’t even order a drink in a bar without a fake ID. Not that anyone cards him, not with his size or scars.  
  
Another moment passes, like Dick is thinking something over, and not for the first time Jason wonders if Dick thinks this little heart to heart was a mistake. That he’s ready to bolt, to get as far away from fucked up Jason Todd as possible. Jason’s fingers itch to hold the knife he has tucked into his boot.  
  
Dick leans down and presses his lips against Jason’s forehead. It’s not quite a kiss, not quite the full motion or the pressure of it, but something in Jason warms all the same, eases down his spine with a slow slide of Dick’s hand down his back. Jason lets out a shaky breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding in.  
  
“I’m so glad you’re here, little wing.” Dick says against the side of his head.  
  
Jason stiffens a moment. It’s a name he hasn’t heard for a long, long time. A lifetime ago, really. Someone else’s life, if he’s being honest with himself. But Dick’s hand is still rubbing gentle circles on his back, and he can feel the other man’s breathing ghost across his cheek.  
  
“I’m glad I’m here too, Dickie.” Jason sits up and looks over at Dick. Dick’s eyes are blue, so blue, like the wings of a bluebird shimmering under the sun, iridescent and free. Jason sniffs and turns away, wiping his betraying eyes. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll shoot you in the fucking dick, alright?”  
  
Dick laughs and runs his fingers through Jason’s hair. “I won’t tell a soul.”  
  
Jason pulls back, loathe to leave the warmth of Dick’s side but knows he can’t let his countenance slip any further than it already has tonight. He grabs another cigarette and lights it, more looking for something to fiddle with than anything else. The nicotine hums in his veins, and he feels a little more grounded after a few good drags. Dick stands up, but doesn’t leave.  
  
“I’m done with patrol for the night and uh,” Dick scratches at the back of his head, a habit Jason remembers from before, that it’s a quirk of Dick’s when he’s anxious. “If you wanted I’ll buy you a drink?”  
  
“Maybe another time, Big Bird. But thanks for the offer.” Jason takes another long pull of smoke into his lungs before exhaling it up and behind him, away from the other vigilante.  
  
“Keep your shit above board, Hood.” Dick flips the whites of his domino back on, takes a step back towards the edge of the building. “I’m keeping an eye on you.”  
  
“I bet you are, pretty bird.” Jason says as Dick takes a step back off the roof, his grapnel launched to a far away building. He disappears into the cloak of early-morning Gotham, the sky around him turning from inky black to a softer grey.  
  
“I hope you are.” Jason says, to no one.  
  


_As the dead robins strung across the morning dew_  
_The blue jays oh sing a sorrowful tune_  
_I'll never stop missing you_  
_I'll never stop loving you_

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep your loved ones close and other such cliches. You never know when you've said your last goodbye. I lost a friend today. These are scary and uncertain times for the world, but especially in the US. Even when things seem at their most hopeless and desperate, know that there is always, always, always someone who does not want to see you go. We need you here, to keep fighting alongside us. And if you are too tired, I will fight for you.


End file.
